A mostly macro- and international economics weblog for students (and anyone else!)

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

A Tiresome Tariff?

President Obama has imposed "safeguard" tariffs for three years on Chinese tires, but at a lower level than the ITC recommended, the Times reports:

The International Trade Commission, an independent federal agency, ruled in late June that Chinese tire imports had indeed disrupted the domestic industry.

The panel recommended that the president impose tariffs for three years, starting at 55 percent and then declining. Mr. Obama, who was required by law to decide on the recommendation by Sept. 17, announced slightly lower tariffs that will start at 35 percent and drop to 25 percent in the third year.

Regardless of party, every president, at some point, and often for political reasons, has imposed restrictions on imports. George Bush did, Bill Clinton did, Ronald Reagan did (a lot), Jimmy Carter did, and so forth...you get the drift. With some exceptions, most of these restrictions were not too costly or too important: they usually involved small industries, and the restrictions eventually expired. So on the broad canvas of presidential trade policy, Obama’s decision is unexceptional. Of course, the timing of the administration’s action, coming off the economic crisis and increasing fears of protectionism, makes it a bit riskier than most. And China’s response could make a bad situation worse; let us hope that it is posturing for its domestic audience. Still, the disruption to world trade is significantly less than Bush’s steel safeguard action early in his term.

When China was admitted to the WTO it agreed to allow the United States to impose tariffs to temporarily counteract the disruptive effects of an import surge. The agreement did not require the United States to show that China had in any way acted unfairly, simply that the growth of imports had seriously disrupted the domestic market.

This clause was an important factor in selling China's entry to the WTO to interest groups in the United States. Therefore, it should not be surprising that the government would occasionally take advantage of a clause that it had demanded.

I truly believe that we have reached the point where technology has become one with our world, and I can say with 99% certainty that we have passed the point of no return in our relationship with technology.

I don't mean this in a bad way, of course! Ethical concerns aside... I just hope that as memory gets less expensive, the possibility of transferring our brains onto a digital medium becomes a true reality. It's one of the things I really wish I could encounter in my lifetime.

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